The Sparrow (1996) is the first novel by science fiction author Mary Doria Russell. It won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, James Tiptree, Jr. Award, Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis and the British Science Fiction Association Award. It was followed by a sequel, Children of God, in 1998. The title refers to Matthew 10:29-31, which relates that not even a sparrow falls to the earth without God's knowing of it.
The novel begins in the year 2019, when the SETI program...
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The Sparrow (1996) is the first novel by science fiction author Mary Doria Russell. It won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, James Tiptree, Jr. Award, Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis and the British Science Fiction Association Award. It was followed by a sequel, Children of God, in 1998. The title refers to Matthew 10:29-31, which relates that not even a sparrow falls to the earth without God's knowing of it.
The novel begins in the year 2019, when the SETI program, at the Arecibo Observatory, picks up radio broadcasts of music from the vicinity of Alpha Centauri. The first expedition to Rakhat, the world that is sending the music, is organized by the Jesuit order.
Only one of the crew, Father Emilio Sandoz, a priest, survives to return to Earth, and he is damaged physically and psychologically. The story is told in framed flashback, with chapters alternating between the story of the expedition and the story of Sandoz' interrogation by the Jesuit order's inquest, set up in 2059 to find the truth. Sandoz...
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